More Snowy Pictures & Easter Fun!

Here's my precious snow bunny ready to go out and explore!

Our sandbox toys came in handy too!

The Saturday before Easter I took my kids, along with my mom, Brigid and a few friends to the country club for some Easter festivities. Here's Isaiah waiting for the Easter egg hunt!

Surprisingly, Isaiah was happy to pose with the Easter bunny.

In each age group, the child who finds the most real eggs wins a prize. And Colby won! We now have this very large stuffed animal, which is very soft and is Colby's new sleeping buddy.

There is an amazing lady who does facepainting and has been a part of the Easter festivities for the past few years. Colby's face is a bit scary for Easter for me, but that's what he wanted!

The Past Two Months - Part 3

My precious Isaiah, obviously before his last haircut enjoying the swings on the montessori playground at Colby's school. On Tuesday and Thursdays we have an hour between the time I pick Abigail & Isaiah up until Colby gets out of school. So, it's wonderful to have a few nice parks to play at while we are waiting! Abigail is so funny - she likes to pose with her stuffed animals. Included in this picture is her trophy from going mutton busting at the fair this past September.

Our weather has sure been volatile this past few months! A few weeks ago our forecast said we were going to be hit with a blizzard of a snow storm. Crazily, it was in the 70's just hours before it blew in. So, we took the opportunity to go to the zoo. We have discovered the late afternoons are a better time to visit instead of the mornings because all of the animals are active waiting for their dinner. Usually mid-morning they're all taking a nap.

OK - somehow when uploading pictures they mixed up a bit - so the zoo pictures are continued below!

Sometimes the kids can be so amazingly sweet to each other. I came walking around the corner to Abigail & Isaiah hugging each other! With Colby being in Kindergarten all day now, the dynamics between my three kids has changed a bit. Abigail & Isaiah are so much closer.

Here's some more mixed up pictures - this was quite a while back when we had a spell of 80's in our weather. So, the kids went out to play in the sprinklers!

So, here's the picture of the snow & our dogs exploring it!

Fish Face from Isaiah!

This was during the snow storm - instant pajama day cuddling on the couch.

Back to the zoo & the moaning tiger.

Wow! That's all the pictures I have for now!!!

We are getting into quite a busy time of the year. Colby & Abigail are playing indoor soccer with Dan coaching. We've had 3 games & they're doing great! With this week being Holy Week we are going to be very busy with church for the next 5 days. But, it's really worth it - all of the liturgies are so beautiful and meaningful. Happy Easter.

The Past 2 Months - Part 2 - The Great Wolf Lodge

This past Spring Break, my mom and I decided to take the kids to an amazing place - The Great Wolf Lodge. Both of my sisters were able to meet us there for the long weekend, which was wonderful since I hadn't seen them since Christmas. We started our morning with a yummy breakfast at Le Peep's. Of course our trip had to begin with a little drama. As you can see in this picture, Abigail's eye is a little affected. Isaiah had just stuck his finger right in her right eye.



Then, we drove and checked in at the Great Wolf Lodge! I would highly recommend taking any and all aged children to visit! They have 12 locations throughout the United States.

They have lots of different kinds of room, that are of varying amounts of money. We stayed in a "Kid's Cabin" room. Here's my very happy Abigail & Isaiah together on the top bunk of their kid's cabin part of the room.

The main attraction of the lodge is the very large indoor waterpark. The entrance to the park is included in your room rate.

Abigail probably went down this slide 100 times while we were there!

This is part of the younger kids area, which has 3 slides. The water is only chest high for Isaiah, so pretty safe for all ages. They provide life jackets for the kids, which is great!

The other areas of the waterpark include a lazy river, wave pool, basketball pool area, a 4 story water fort with 2 body slides, and 5 really fun big slides. You have to be 42" to ride any of the big slides so Colby went with me and my sisters many times. All of them go outside the building, but are always enclosed. It was especially fun at night when it was dark outside! The waterpark is open 9-9, so you can come and go as you want! They also have an outdoor pool with a few slides that's open a portion of the day.

This was inside the Kid's Cabin. I love this picture of my precious sisters, Lisa & Laura and my precious kids! The bracelet you see on Colby's wrist is what everyone gets when you check in. It allows you access to the waterpark and the adult's bracelets get you into your hotel room and you can charge at any of the restaurants or stores, very handy!

The rest of the room had a regular bed & pullout couch, so we call fit! This is a typical morning in our family - everyone piling into one bed to snuggle!

Another activity there was MagiQuest. You first make an investment in this wand... quite an expense, but lots of fun. You get a booklet that gives you clues for different quests. It sends you all around the 8 floors of the hotel looking for these clues. Then, you wave the wand and sometimes the pictures talk to you or like the chest below opens and gives you gold points.Here's the lobby of the hotel from up a story. In the evenings they have storytime here and the creatures come out and sing for you.

My kid's "silly faces."

I really didn't mean for this post to be an advertisement for The Great Wolf Lodge, but I really can't say enough about it!

One more post to go & I'll be up to date with my pictures!!!

The Last 2 months of pictures!?!

Alright - finally I'm going to be able to blog & upload pictures. I'm having challenges with my new camera syncing to my computer. I can't locate the pictures when trying to upload them to blogger. I still can't find them properly, but figured out a way to get to them for now!!

So, we shall begin in February. We went to storytime at the paint it yourself shop. They were reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. I love his books & Isaiah's room is decorated with Hungry Caterpillar blankets, sheets, etc. So, mom and I took Abigail & Isaiah. Thankfully it went awesome! The last time we took Isaiah there it was not such a great experience. This time he was very into it.
This is the finished product, as you can see Isaiah has quite a bit of the green paint on his face.
There were 2 holes on the bottom of the caterpillar that he was very intent on getting as much paint as possible inside.

Before they paint, the owner reads a few stories to them. I was a little nervous about them being on the front row, but they did wonderful listening. We were also joined by one of Isaiah's friend's. It was lots of fun & we now have 2 more caterpillars for Isaiah's room!

Valentine's weekend we went to the ranch along with two of Dan's brother's and a couple of their kids. Abigail and I were the only girls among the eight other guys - makes for an interesting Valentine's Day...

Isaiah being held by cousin, Sam, who he adores.Abigail being held by cousin, Ross.

I took Abigail & Isaiah to Colby's Kindergarten Valentine's Day party.

Colby & his best friend, Zalen.

We bought some new living room furniture in March and the kids have decided their "dad's" recliner is the best place to sit and watch cartoons - all together.

Abigail is becoming quite the artist. We were visiting my grandparents one afternoon & she started drawing with chalk. We had to stay until the drawing was complete. The picture doesn't really do the finished product justice. She drew our whole family - the five of us as snowmen in varying sizes as well as our two dogs!

Abigail has a fundraiser and singing program at her preschool. Here she is with her friend, Taylor.

Abigail with Daddy after the show.

Colby and Gannie waiting for the show.

Abigail is for sure turning into quite a different person that Colby. She is not shy to perform for sure! She got up on stage with her class and sang and did all of the motions with gusto. I was so proud of her!